Phoenix Mercury All-Star Alyssa Thomas is the latest villain to Caitlin Clark fans after punching Clark in the throat during a game on Wednesday night.

The referees missed the punch in real time, but fans and the league office did not.

A viral clip of the punch in slow motion spread across social media, pouring gasoline on the ongoing culture war surrounding Clark’s physical treatment by opposing players, which has been a controversial issue dating back to Clark’s rookie season in 2024.

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And Less than 24 hours after the incident, the WNBA slapped Thomas with a one-game suspension for what was deemed a “reckless” and “non-basketball act.”

Who is the woman behind the punch?

If Thomas wasn’t in the WNBA, she says she would go pro in combat sports

In a 2019 interview with Nike PLAYlist, Thomas answered what sport she would have gone pro in if she didn’t go pro in basketball.

“Either boxing or MMA,” Thomas said.

If Thomas never went pro in any sport, she said she would have gotten into dentistry.

“Since I was a kid, I loved going to the dentist. I just was fascinated with teeth and still am. I’m passionate about that whole process of cleaning,” according to a profile on WNBA.com.

The first time Thomas stepped on a basketball court, she threw a ‘hissy fit’

Thomas was signed up to try basketball for the first time at the age of five by her mother, Tina, per the WNBA.

Thomas said she “Threw myself all down the stairs, down the hallway,” while her mom said “She just threw an absolute hissy fit.”

WNBA SUSPENDS ALYSSA THOMAS FOR ‘RECKLESSLY’ HITTING CAITLIN CLARK IN THROAT DURING SCRAMBLE

Her parents didn’t let her win a popular board game

Thomas’ parents never took it easy on her when they played “Candyland” as she was growing up.

“We weren’t the parents that were just going to let you win,” Tina said, per the WNBA.

“In life, you have to fight, and how are you going to fight if you don’t teach your kids to fight? So if she fell over, ‘get up, you’re alright,’ and if she didn’t get up, you knew something was wrong.”

It was a parenting tactic also used by the father of New York Yankees legend Derek Jeter, who famously never let Jeter win in board games or card games when he was growing up, to instill harsh competitiveness at an early age.

Thomas added that her mom was especially hard on her and helped develop her toughness.

“By no means was it easy, and it’s still not easy,” Thomas said.

Thomas plays more physically because shoulder issues hinder her shooting ability

Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas scrambles to get up over Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark during a game at Gainbridge Fieldhouse in Indianapolis on June 24, 2026. The Phoenix Mercury defeated the Indiana Fever 111-109. (USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect)

Thomas currently plays basketball with torn labrums in both of her shoulders.

The injuries are so severe that she completely lacks the structural integrity to lift her arms and shoot a traditional, fluid jump shot. Instead, she is forced to use a rigid, one-handed pushing motion from her chest just to get the ball to the rim.

Because she cannot rely on outside shooting, Thomas adapted by leaning entirely into her physical frame. She drives directly into the teeth of opposing defenses, absorbing heavy contact in the paint to score closer to the basket.

Indiana Fever guard Caitlin Clark shown after falling in the lane while Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas watches the ball at Gainbridge Fieldhouse Indianapolis, Indiana on June 24, 2026. (Grace Smith/IndyStar / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images)

That brutal, driving style requires her to initiate intense physical collisions on nearly every single possession.

Despite the mechanical limitations and constant pain, the tactical shift worked. She transformed herself into a six-time All-Star, three-time First-Team All-WNBA, an Olympic gold medalist and the undisputed triple-double queen of the WNBA.

Thomas has been the center of immense criticism this week

The throat punch on Clark ignited a fierce wave of backlash.

Indiana Fever Head Coach Stephanie White led the charge, completely unloading on Thomas and the league’s officials during her postgame press conference.

“We have a generational talent and a WNBA superstar who had two cheap shots right there that weren’t called,” White said, pointing directly at Thomas’s actions. “Absolutely unacceptable.”

White argued that Thomas regularly crosses the line from playing physical defense into inflicting dangerous, non-basketball contact.

“It’s absolutely egregious and utterly disrespectful,” White continued to fume to reporters. “The fist in the throat is crazy. It’s crazy. It’s dangerous.”

On Thursday, Fever President Kelly Krauskopf released a statement praising the decision to suspend Thomas.

“Player safety should be paramount in our league. We appreciate the WNBA’s review of last night’s incident and the action taken. Right now our focus is on Caitlin and our entire team as we prepare for Saturday,” Krauskopf wrote.

Former Minnesota Vikings captain and prominent conservative activist Jack Brewer said the punch would be considered a “hate crime” if the roles were reversed.

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“This would be considered a hate crime if it were the other way around,” Brewer told Fox News Digital.

Other critics have expressed their own outrage on social media.

John Cena has opened up about how reality TV shows have helped in his marriage to Shay Shariatzadeh. He said that they ask each other internal questions and talk about things after watching these shows.

John Cena and Eric Andre gave an interview with Entertainment Tonight, published on Friday, June 26. They have worked on a movie titled Little Brother, which was released on Friday. They also spoke about reality TV shows during the interview, with Cena naming some of his favorite shows.

When asked if the former WWE superstar was a fan of the reality TV shows, he said:

“So, I love this.. The.. Secret Millionaire [Million Dollar Secret]. I keep getting the title wrong.”

The interviewer and Andre asked him if he watched dating reality shows, and Cena responded:

“I don’t do the dating show. I will say the wife does the dating shows. She loves ‘Love is Blind’. And I constantly get to get caught up on that. And it’s weird, because I use her perspective to start conversations about our relationship and make sure, like, Hey, it’s not just cannon fodder for, ‘I saw this while you were asleep’, and ‘Can you believe these people’, or ‘I like this trait about this person?’”

“I’m like, ‘Okay, well, let’s look inward and see, like, are… Are we a mirror of what you saw that you didn’t like? Can we do better?’ So, uh, amazingly enough, reality TV is guiding my relationship.”

John Cena has been married to Shay Shariatzadeh since October 2020. They first met when the former was filming Playing with Fire, and they were first linked in March 2019.

Shariatzadeh is an engineer with a bachelor’s degree in electrical and electronics engineering from the University of British Columbia. She has worked in companies like Motorola Solutions and Sonatype. She and John Cena have made numerous public appearances together, but Shariatzadeh prefers to keep her life private in general.

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How did John Cena meet Shay Shariatzadeh?

John Cena revealed how he met Shay Shariatzadeh during an episode of The Howard Stern Show, released in February 2024. He revealed that he met her in February 2019 at a bar in Vancouver, Canada, when he was there to watch the New England Patriots in the Super Bowl.

Cena revealed that he was in this restaurant, where Shariatzadeh also arrived with her friends. One of her friends asked the actor for a picture, as he explained:

“So I got a picture with her, and then she brought by my wife-to-be over, we have our first fan photo, which we hang proudly where we hang our hats. It’s awesome.”

“I asked her for her number and she gave me her number, and I didn’t wait like the two days [to reach out]. I left the restaurant and on my walk home I [texted], ‘It was so nice to meet you, you’re beautiful, I’d like to get to know you more if you have any free time coming up I’ll make time for you.’ She’s like, ‘You want to go out this weekend?’ I said, ‘Sure’,” he added.

John Cena revealed that he knew within three months that he wanted to marry Shay Shariatzadeh.

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